Saturday, October 3, 2009

The Porch-The Finale

When I left you yesterday, we were talking about our awful porch, and I promised you a look at our semi-permanent solution.

We started with exterior grade 5/8" plywood.

Using these tools:

and a 1 x 4 as a guide, we cut out shallow grooves on the plywood to resemble the joints in a tongue and groove floor. The linoleum knife cut the grooves and the chisel widened them a bit. We took turns cutting, because it was hard work. Both men ended the day with gashed fingers. I didn't. ;-) Then, we used a regular pencil and ran it down the grooves to emphasize them a bit.

Finally, I stained it to match the rest of the porch. It doesn't look like a perfect match, but this is exactly what the first part looked like. I know, because I was heartbroken at the ugliness of it. Varnish completely turned it into a thing of beauty.

Once we put them in place, it was amazing how much they looked like the rest of the porch. From 2 feet away, you can't tell that it isn't tongue and groove all the way around. This picture doesn't look like it matches because the new stuff isn't varnished, but in person, it's amazing.

Can you tell?

We have a friend who is a builder, he did most of the work on Willie Nelson's new truckstop/restaurant/theater in Central Texas. So, he knows his way around building things. When he came by, we were showing him the new floor, and he didn't realize that it wasn't tongue-and-groove. Go us!!!

We don't expect it to last forever. We don't even expect it to last more than a few years, but by then, we will have fresh funds to do it properly. This is our 3rd old house restoration, so we have learned much about baby steps and making do until the time is right.

Isn't my husband brilliant? ;-)

Ok, enough about the house for now. I'll move on to a new topic tomorrow, I promise.